To celebrate HKUST's 20th birthday, nearly every academic department and unit has staged its own tribute to mark this milestone. The library, the centerpiece of our learning enterprise, has put on a multimedia presentation that is both dazzling and nostalgia-inducing.

For those of us who were not present at the creation of the university, this visual presentation at the Library Gallery is a real treat. True to its preference for the interactive mode, visitors to its opening ceremony, including the Founding President Prof Chia Wei Woo, were encouraged to leave congratulatory messages that were stored and projected onto a message board via an interactive computer program.

This trip down memory lane includes 33 panels and 7 slideshows, highlighting the university's major milestones and achievements, and even a video "Genesis" produced in 1992 that records the planning, design and construction of the campus. The story from a rocky barracks site to a world-class university is best told through pictures, artifacts and the familiar faces of the people who made it all happen.